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It’s Monday morning and you come into the office to discover that your network is down for unknown reasons. You call your IT Professional, only to find out that he/she has been in a serious accident and is in critical condition. You quickly Google for another “tech” in the area, and call and explain the situation to him/her. As each moment passes, you are unable to do your job. Later that day, you see your “geek angel” in the front lobby and you are immediately relieved knowing your problem is going to be fixed. He/she takes a look at your infrastructure, and tries to access some resources. He/she suspects it’s a problem on the server, and needs an account with administrative privilege to resolve the issue. You look at the specialist, and with a sinking feeling, you realize that you don’t have passwords, account information, or any other useful documentations, and the situation quickly goes from bad to worse.

Those of you who know me will hear me refer to the “hit by the bus file”. This is a file, paper or electronic that documents your entire IT implementation. Consider this…one day you need IT support and you call your “IT guy” and find out he was crossing the road and was hit by a bus. You now have to bring in someone else who has never seen your systems or implementation before, and this new person will have to figure out how your tech fits together before he/she can even start to assist you. He/she can’t start to take anything apart to troubleshoot if they don’t know how to put it back together again for your implementation. It’s very much like a completed puzzle. You can see how all the pieces fit together, but without the picture on the box to refer to, the puzzle may not easily go back together again if some of the pieces need to be modified.

Your IT support person is also not un-replaceable. Any person who holds your IT structure to themselves is (in my opinion) either selfish, lazy, or is hiding something. Yes, this may sound harsh, but in my experience, it almost always comes down to one of these three factors.

1. Selfish – they want to feel like they are a key element of your companys structure. You and your data are now hostage of your IT support.

2. Lazy – they don’t want to take the time to document your structure. This should be part of the contract, and a professional will always include this.

3. Hiding Something – they might not use legitimate/legal software and this could be their way to hide it (follow-up post to come).

You are now at the mercy of whoever holds your information. You are trapped.

As a small business owner, you need to be responsible for both your data and network.

Your trustworthy IT Professional should be leaving you:

All usernames and passwords for all equipment

A list of all service providers, including ISPs, and any hosting service

A backup number to call

A network schematic

Documentation for custom application

A list and location of all software installers

Backup procedures

Router configuration

This file should be updated whenever there is a change to the infrastructure. For example, you change your ISP, or add a new file server. As someone trying to help you, there is nothing more frustrating than realizing the documentation you have is not accurate.

Keeping your documentation current and accurate is critical in protecting your data. If your IT specialist (either on contract or on payroll) does not provide this information, you are at risk of becoming a “prisoner”. Take the case of TerryChilds, the network administrator for the city of San Francisco. He refused to give up the administrative passwords to his supervisors, and it cost the city almost $900,000 USD to regain control of their own network. This is an extreme case, but it demonstrates what can and has happened.

What is the cost of your systems being unusable? What if those systems are down for an extended period of time? What would it cost for someone to have to figure it all out before fixing it?

If you don’t have current IT documentation, call your IT Specialist and ask, or if need be, demand that this documentation is updated or created. Don’t be held captive by your IT support.

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A little bit about Sharon Bennett

I have been in the IT industry for 23 years now. I remember the early days of DOS and the launch of Windows 3.1. The Internet was not available to the general public at that time. We used Archie and Veronica to "surf" (if you can call text-based internet surfing).
After all these years and changes one thing has always stood out: most people knew technology could help them but didn't know how to implement it.
My passion is teaching others on the technologies that can not only help their companies but their careers.